Gingrich pitches contract for America at Sun City

Sunday

Oct 9, 2011 at 12:24 AM

Gwyneth J. Saunders

Former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich stood before a packed house last Wednesday in Sun City's Magnolia Hall and spoke about his campaign platform — 21st Century Contract with America. Gingrich’s residents-only talk was part of a two-day trip through South Carolina, site of the first primary in the South. It included lunch at the Bluffton Golden Corral, an overnight stay at the governor's mansion and a meeting with Gov. Nikki Haley. His whirlwind visit ended with a public screening at Coligny Theatre on Hilton Head Island of the documentary "A City Upon a Hill" made by him and his wife, Callista.

His contract of solutions to bring America back to traditional values and policies is made up of four pieces, he told the Sun City crowd.

Those pieces include: First, to restore the role of the Legislature; second, sign 50-100 executive orders on the first day he is in office; third, establish a training program for people he hires once he gets the presidential nomination; and fourth, get the American citizens involved in working as a team.

“If you're serious about change, you can't just hire nice, well-meaning people. These are 80-year left-wing established policies that have to change and it's not going to be easy,” he said on the third point.

The audience gave Gingrich a number of standing ovations and rounds of applause.

“It was a good speech,” said Dave Sherron. “I agreed with everything he said.”

Lidia Marques managed to get her photo taken with him following the presentation and was impressed.

“I thought it was excellent. He had a lot of good points,” she said. “I find him to be a very knowledgeable, intelligent man and that’s what we need in Washington.”

Gingrich told the crowd that his draft of the whole new contract would be on his website — www.newt.org — Sept. 27, 2012.

"That's the first half of my inaugural address. I'm going to take an hour and a half," he said to much laughter. "Then I will sign 50-100 executive orders. They are not the law but they direct people responsible to carry out the law."

Those will be published on his website by Oct. 1, 2012, he said, and he is looking for input from the American public as to what those orders should be.

“People will be in no doubt about what I am going to do and the first executive order will be to abolish the White House czars,” Gingrich said. “I ask you to be with me and recognize that we are on an eight-year journey to remind Congress, the Senate, the statehouses, the county councils, the school board that we're moving in a direction to put America on the right road.”

In answer to questions from the audience, Gingrich said that he would work for a balanced budget amendment, saying that he tried that in 1994 and came close to passing it.

"So we just pretended it had passed and balanced the budget anyway," he told the crowd. "I am the only speaker in your lifetime who has passed a balanced budget four consecutive years."

In addressing education, Gingrich — a longtime teacher — said he believed the country needed to fundamentally re-establish the entire educational system.

“We need to be honest about achievement,” he said. “If you promote someone who can't read, you are cheating them, for their entire lives. The current education system is wrong. We don't need our children to memorize marginally better than children from other countries. I think every child should have an individualized learning program.”

Gingrich said he was comfortable with 12-year term limits and was uncomfortable with very short limits, citing California's state government where “they have very short terms and what that means is no one in Sacramento has any idea what they're doing.”

He said he does not have the financial standing that several of his fellow campaigners will have. Gingrich ended his talk at Sun City by urging the audience to contribute to his campaign and become involved.

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